Interventions Preventing Osteoporosis in Primary Care: A Systematic Review

Objective: The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review to find interventions in primary health care that would increase osteoporosis prevention behaviors.Methods: Systematic searches of CINAHL, Eric, Medline complete, PsycInfo, Ovid, Web of Science, Cochrane Library (N=1270). A total of 17 published articles met our inclusion criteria. English-language articles published between January 2000-May 2019, in primary care settings, participants with healthy or risk of osteoporosis, investigated osteoporosis preventing behaviors. The data extracted included population characteristics, diagnosis, mean age and setting, intervention and control groups, and outcomes of significance to the review question and specific objectives. In this review, a meta-analysis could not be performed due to the heterogeneity of the data.Results: The majority of studies have been found to use multiple strategies to prevent osteoporosis. Eight studies focused only on the female gender and seven studies focused only on older adults. Compared to the control groups, it was found that the participants' osteoporosis knowledge increased significantly (p<0.01) with four interventions including prevention and self-management courses, counseling session, group discussion, various exercises, educational booklets, and motivational messages. Studies that assessed outcomes found that osteoporosis knowledge, calcium and vitamin D intake, bone mineral density, exercise, factors underlying behavior, quality of life, risk management, respectively.Conclusion: Using educational interventions can improve osteoporosis knowledge, calcium-vitamin D intake, and bone mineral density among healthy or at-risk populations about osteoporosis in primary care. Behavior change provide also health promotion. Handling an individual's health beliefs, attitudes, and self-efficacy can facilitate behavior change.